True Persistence
Everyone has a dream that they want to achieve. They all have something they want to accomplish and work very hard to achieve their goals. But not everyone in Lucy's neighborhood had something they wanted to accomplish. Lucy was never quite sure what her dreams were, what her dream job was, or what she could do to achieve her goals. She was shy and quiet, and always had a difficult time when it came to making decisions. The things that she really liked doing were painting, drawing, writing, and making things out of small objects that she could get her hands on. She was very skilled when it came to doing anything artistic or creative. But she never knew what she wanted to accomplish in life. There were so many options openly available for her, that it was hard for her to choose. But now, she had finally found out what her goals were and how she could accomplish them, all with a little time and lots of persistence. It all started on a rainy afternoon, and Lucy was in her house, trying to complete a tangram puzzle. It looked really tricky, and she wasn't that good at fitting all the pieces together. Her sister, Molly, came along and saw what she was doing. "Need a little help?" asked Molly. Lucy tried to say "yes", but in a few seconds, Molly moved all the tangram pieces and had them all fit perfectly. "Whoa..." said Lucy. "How are you able to do that?" "Well," said Molly. "It's because I've learned to master tangram puzzles. When I first tries tangrams, I felt like I wasn't able to put the pieces together. But I wasn't able to give up that easily. I started a goal to get better at tangrams and other puzzles. Within a few weeks or months or so, I kept on trying to complete different puzzles that I thought seemed difficult. Before I knew it, I was able to finish them with no problem." "How did you do that?" asked Lucy. "It's simple," said Molly. "It was through something called persistence. Being persistent means that you do something that might seem hard at first, but you keep doing it until that thing is accomplished." "Persistence..." Lucy muttered to herself. She had never shown persistence before. "Well, I don't think it'll be easy," said Lucy. "Because I don't even know what my goals are or how I can achieve them." Molly seemed to understand her sister's predicament. She placed her hand on top of Lucy's and said "Lucy, what I want you to do is to try and think about what your dreams are and how you can accomplish them. Do you understand?" "I understand," replied Lucy quietly. As Molly walked away, Lucy scratched the back of her neck and muttered, "I don't think I have any goals to achieve, but I'm sure I'll find out what my goals are eventually. I just need to find out what I'm good at." The next day, Lucy was walking home from school, still wondering what she wanted to achieve. Whatever she needed to accomplish, it could be very important, but she didn't quite have much motivation to get that thing done. She was worried that she could make a huge fool of herself without even trying. But Molly always told her to keep her hopes up and find a way to succeed. Lucy hoped that, with some optimism and inspiration, she could find what her true calling was. At home, Molly could tell that something was bothering her sister. Lucy was sitting at her desk and looking out of the window of her room, looking a little solemn. "What's wrong, Lucy?" asked Molly. "Nothing," said Lucy. "It's just that I'm having a really hard time figuring out what my goals are." "Really?" said Molly. "Yeah," sighed Lucy. "I just can't find anything I want to accomplish in life." "Why not?" asked Molly. "I don't know," said Lucy. "I just have one heck of a time making decisions for myself." "You know, I once heard a story about someone who was able to achieve their goal by doing something they set their mind to," said Molly. "Maybe that story will help you. In China or Thailand or someplace like that, two men dug a huge hole that was three inches deep, hoping to look for something spectacular under the ground. But they didn't find anything, so they just decided to keep on digging. The next day, they doubled the size of the hole they dug, but they still couldn't find anything. But they did not give up at all. They just kept digging and digging, and by the fifth day, they dug so deep that they actually found some gems that had been buried underground. They had actually found something spectacular, and they didn't give up just because the hole they dug was so deep. That's an example of true persistence. If you try to be more persistent, you'll be able to accomplish your goal, just like those two guys who dug that really deep hole." "Wow," said Lucy. "That's pretty impressive." "It sure is," said Molly. "It's an example of true persistence. If you just try and use persistence to accomplish your goals, you'll be able to achieve something spectacular, just like the guys who dug that hole and found buried treasure. Just like how they set their minds to digging for some underground treasure, maybe you'll set your mind to something that you like to do." "But I don't know what my goals are!" insisted Lucy. "Well, I'm sure you'll find out eventually," said Molly. As Molly left, Lucy gave a frustrated sigh and buried her head with her arms on the table. "Molly is a lot smarter than me," she muttered. "She can do things better than I can. She knows what her goals are, and she knows how to accomplish them. But do I? No. In fact, I don't even know what my goals are. It makes me flustered not knowing what my goals are or how I can accomplish them." Just then, something seemed to dawn on her. She looked up and saw a bit of sunlight coming from her window, which made her realize that what her sister said to her might be true. "Wait a minute..." she thought to herself. "Maybe Molly was right. My goals might come from the things that I like to do." Looking around her room, Lucy could see all the drawings, paintings, and crafts that she had made in the past. They all looked very well-done and original to her. They all sparked her interest on what her goal was going to be. "I'm really good at art and crafting," thought Lucy. "Maybe that's what my goals are. To improve my artistic skills." Looking out of the window, she could see that, far beyond the houses that lined up her neighborhood, there was inspiration for her project ahead of her. The sky was a beautiful blue, the trees and hills were a gorgeous green, and the clouds all looked so perfectly white. All of a sudden, something clicked into Lucy's mind. The goal that she wanted to achieve was right in front of her. All she needed to do now was start planning on how she was going to do this and start working on it. Her mind was now set on doing something spectacular. Gathering her art supplies, she immediately went to work. Lucy set up a large white canvas on her drawing easel, making sure it was the size she wanted. Then she placed a few paint cans and other art supplies on the sides. After making sure that everything was all set, Lucy was ready to get started. She started by sketching the outline with her pencil, and making sure to erase some mistakes she made. Then she used her pastel-colored crayons to start some of the coloring, being very careful not to color outside of the lines. Then she got out her felt markers and colored over some parts where she colored with crayon, even though one of them accidentally sprung a leak. Her pastels seemed to blend in very smoothly with the other colors, which made Lucy feel glad that she was off to a good start. As she was rolling her pastels on her canvas, she realized had forgotten to ink the outline of her project, and now it was starting to look like a huge mess of colors. Lucy felt like she had a monkey on her back. It was hard for her to focus on huge her project, and it was taking forever for her to finish it. Lucy thought that she should just give up, but something stopped her from doing so. Her mind and heart didn't want her to just give up. They wanted her to keep trying until her task was done. She started thinking about the men who dug a huge hole and found buried treasure. She had to keep trying, no matter how difficult her goal seemed. "I'm not going to give up," thought Lucy. "Those guys who dug that huge hole didn't quit that easily. I'm going to keep going until I complete my task, just like them. I can do this. I know I can." Lucy got out a new canvas and started over again. She drew the outline in pencil first, and then traced the outline with ink, just to leave a lasting impression. Then she colored with crayons, markers, and pastels. She took out some crafting tape and started cutting it with scissors. Then she placed the tape onto some parts of her canvas. Then she cut up some colorful tissue paper and stuck them onto the canvas with plenty of glue. She dipped her paintbrushes into her paint bottles and started stroking them through some of the leftover white parts. She also made sure to mix up some of the colors with her pallet knife. Day after day, week after week, Lucy worked long and hard. Bit by bit, she drew, painted, cut, pasted, colored, and added more and more to her big project. It wasn't easy to work on that crafty project of hers, and it made her get a tad bit messy, but her refusal to give up held an opportunity for her to learn to keep on trying. Finally, after what felt like months, Lucy was finally finished with her project. As Molly came into her room, Lucy was sure that her sister was going to love what she had done. "What do you have there, Lucy?" asked Molly. "It's a huge project that I've been working on for quite a while," said Lucy. "It was kind of difficult to get it right, but I did my best and kept trying my hardest to finish it." "Can I see?" asked Molly. Lucy smiled and nodded, allowing Molly to take a closer look at her canvas. Once she saw what Lucy had done, Molly was very impressed. It was a collage that resembled a beautiful butterfly in a city background. "Do you like it?" said Lucy. "I call it City Butterfly. I've seen many artists do something like this, so I decided to make something that stands out and helps me express myself." "Wow, Lucy!" exclaimed Molly. "What a collage! How did you even do it?" "I got inspiration from looking out of my window," said Lucy. "I realized that since I'm a shy, out-of-place person in a busy neighborhood, I decided to use my artistic skills to create something to express my inner self. And by doing this, I finally found out what my goals were." "What are those goals?" asked Molly. "To unleash my artistic skills and build things out of anything I can find," said Lucy with a proud smile. "In other words, I realized that I can achieve my goals just by doing the things that I like to do." "I can see that you did!" said Molly. "I'm really proud of you, little sister. You were able to figure out what your goal was all by yourself. You didn't even need me to help you. Remember what I told you about the men who were able to find something spectacular and not give up? Well, you did something spectacular, just like them. You didn't give up, and you just kept going. That's what I call true persistence." "Thanks, Molly," said Lucy. "I think I have some really good goals I want to achieve. I feel like there's a bright future ahead of me." Lucy was really proud of herself. She had found something to achieve and was able to achieve it. She is now no longer indecisive and doesn't procrastinate. Whenever there's something she wants to accomplish, she takes her time and turns it into a great work of art. She was able to do something spectacular, and it made her feel more successful. It was all because all because of true persistence. Category:Stories Category:Short Stories